How Donald Trump blew the offshore wind industry off course
Rewind a few years, and it looked as if offshore wind might take off in the US. The Biden administration moved to open up much of the nation's coastlines to development, blue and even a couple swing states agreed to work with the White House to speed things up, and Congress passed sweeping tax incentives for renewable energy. Now, the tide has turned, and President Donald Trump is waging a war on windmills, attempting to kill projects that are already underway.
Trump's actions are putting tens of billions of dollars of investment at risk as developers try to forge ahead with the first batch of commercial-scale projects to break ground in the US. Even if they survive, the cloud of economic uncertainty around wind power could cast a shadow over the industry for years beyond the end of Trump's term.
"The outlook is far dimmer than it was a year ago," says Oliver Metcalfe, head of wind research at BloombergNEF (BNEF). "It's been non-stop bad news for the US offshore wind sector since Trump took office."
"It's been non-stop bad news for the US offshore wind sector since Trump took office."
On earnings calls over the past couple weeks, companies building offshore wind farms in the …